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Depictions of apocalypse move from big screen to real life
By Samantha Wulff
On March 14, 2013
As I watched the amorous side of zombies in Warm Bodies a couple of weeks ago,
I was faced with yet another reminder of how much we enjoy romanticizing and
sensationalizing the collapse of structure, the end of civilization and our ultimate demise.
Films like The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, I am Legend, The Hunger Games, iRobot, The
Book of Eli, The Matrix and Zombieland all show us the end of the world as we know it
- some in humorous ways, and others, quite seriously. Yet barely anybody is concerned
with the possibility of any of these plots being realized.
Placing these scenarios in "make-believe land," is a decent coping strategy but just
because you saw something on a big screen at the movies, doesn't mean that the idea is
necessarily fake.
Past films and television shows have presented us with predictions of the future.
Overwhelmingly, these predictions have come true. Robot assistants (Siri), hovercrafts
and even video calls (Skype) were once figments of the imagination.
We have technology to thank for our lifestyles and countless scientific and medical
breakthroughs. But with artificial intelligence becoming increasingly prevalent in our
society, it's not that much of a stretch to think that we could soon be living in the world
depicted in iRobot.
I am becoming increasingly suspicious of my computer even as I write this.
Technology is something we are very familiar with, but let's talk zombies.
Zombies are fictional creatures that move really slowly and eat human flesh. In the
movies, a slow jog in the opposite direction or a blow to the head is enough to keep
them at bay. The fictional danger entertains us, so zombies have been integrated into our
society.
We seem to have forgotten, however, that we had a real-life, bath-salt induced zombie
scare last year. A guy got his face eaten off by a friend of his, but we're too busy drafting
our survival plans to be able to comprehend the real danger.
Like many others, I enjoyed the Hunger Games books and its film debut. We watch it and
think, "Wouldn't that be a crazy?" or "Can you imagine?"
Most likely, that's all we will have to do - imagine. But others don't have to, because
they live it.
Children in North Korea are really living in a totalitarian state. Blaine Harden wrote
an article called "A real-life 'Hunger Games'" for the Los Angeles Times, where he
discussed how North Koreans are bred like livestock and worked to death.
Harden notes that in labor camps "...the captives are always hungry and the games are
always rigged."
With so many depressing realities, it's normal to put defense mechanisms in place.
Transferring our worst fears to movies, where there's always a happy ending, is telling of
our culture. We don't want to deal with all of the bad things that could be out there. So
we stamp "fake" on them, making them non-issues.
This is our coping strategy, and it has worked thus far. I just wonder how we'll cope
when the totalitarian robot leaders are making the movies.
Samantha Wulff can be reached by email at wulff.record@live.com.
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